Chương 7: Takigakure Village

It was still the same hotel. Under the dim, warm light, the old woman sat behind the bar, looking somewhat drowsy.

Lifting the curtain and entering the inn, Jieluo went straight to the old woman and gently tapped the table with her fingers, waking her from her slumber.

Opening her eyes and seeing Jieluo clearly, the old woman smiled kindly and said, "You're back, little girl."

"Hmm." Jie Luo nodded slightly, placed a wad of money on the table, and said with a light smile, "Old man, check out."

"Aren't you staying at the hotel tonight?" the old woman asked.

"I probably won't be able to stay tonight," Jie Luo shook her head and said, "There's a little trouble, and I don't really want to deal with it."

Next, a knowledgeable city guard captain will probably conduct a search of the entire town.

After all, the only people they could suspect, besides demons, were ninjas.

"Oh, I see..." the old woman muttered, then took out stacks of neatly stacked explosive tags and said, "You child, you put so many up in the house, it'll give this old hag a good scolding. Here, take them back."

Jieluo nodded, put away the explosive tag, and said with a light smile, "By the way, old man, thank you for your help with the matter before."

The old woman smiled and said, "Is there anything I can help you with? I didn't know!"

"Hmm..." Jieluo shook his head with a slight smile and said, "Old man, if the ninjas of Konoha find you later, it's better to tell them the truth and suffer less. After all, what you know isn't any valuable information, so there's no need to make trouble for the ninjas."

"It was me, the old woman, who was being nosy," the old woman said stubbornly.

"But I've had enough of living alone, and I'm not afraid of the ninja."

"Whatever makes you happy~" Jieluo spread her small hands, sighed, and said, "Well then, I'm leaving now. Farewell, old man."

"Goodbye, have a safe journey, guest." The old woman watched Jieluo leave.

Reaching the curtain, Jieluo stopped, turned slightly to the side, and asked, "To be honest, I'm really curious why you helped me."

Gazing into Jieluo's scarlet eyes, the similar look seemed to evoke distant memories, causing him to momentarily lose himself in thought.

Jieluo waited patiently for the answer.

I can probably guess that it's something like her daughter or granddaughter.

After a short while, the old woman smiled and shook her head, saying, "There's no particular reason, it's probably because you're very cute."

"Really..." Jieluo turned around, lifted the curtain, and said with a slight smile, "You're the first person in my life to call me cute, Grandma, thank you."

The curtain fell, and the hanging wind chimes swayed gently.

Watching the lonely figure leave, the all-encompassing old woman sat back in her chair and gradually drifted off to sleep.

They traveled through the night, crossing the border of the Land of Fire, and by sunrise the next day, Yura had arrived near Takigakure Village in the Land of Waterfalls.

Due to the loss of the village that captured the tailed beast, the village's defenses were significantly weakened. In addition, Takigakure's location was extremely secretive, and apart from the village's ninjas, no outsiders knew about it. The village's defenses were basically all inside the village. Therefore, Yura found a secluded place on the outskirts to settle down temporarily.

Putting the matter of the Land of Fire aside for the time being, in addition to continuing her training and developing her ninjutsu, Yura also needs to conduct in-depth reconnaissance of Takigakure. To avoid alerting them, everything will naturally be done in secrecy.

As a Chunin of the village, Yura of this rank naturally wouldn't know most secrets, including the location of secret techniques, the storage location of Hero's Water, and the location of the Tailed Beasts.

Black Secret Technique: Hell Butterfly A jet-black butterfly, carrying an eyeball, crawled out from Yura's eye socket, fluttered its wings, and flew towards Takigakure Village. It passed through the waterfall and entered the mountain tunnel hidden behind it. Along the way, there were numerous unfathomable pools of water on the tunnel floor. The waterways beneath these pools went deep underground, crisscrossing and connecting in all directions. Some led to the underground, while most were dead ends.

A few waterways, however, led to the real Takigakure Village.

Relying on this natural labyrinthine defense system, Takigakure has maintained its position as the most secretive ninja village in the ninja world.

Jieluo naturally knew the specific passage. The Hell Butterfly stopped in front of a pool of water and then plunged into the water.

Underwater, the butterfly's form makes movement difficult, so it transforms its hair into a small fish in the blink of an eye, swaying its tail as it swims into the depths. Soon after, it crosses a long underwater passage, leaves the water, and transforms back into a jet-black butterfly, fluttering up to the surface, its eyes moving as it observes its surroundings.

Very good, the hidden sentries remain unchanged.

Outside Takigakure Village, Yura sat on a giant black cocoon in the forest, her eyes slightly narrowed.

The giant cocoon woven from hair is Jieluo's resting nest, protecting her from wind and rain on rainy days. Most importantly, the hair, deep underground, spreads out in all directions, so that any ground tremor within a two-kilometer radius cannot escape Jieluo's perception.

Black Secret Techniques. Black Nest Perched atop the Black Nest, like a spider sitting on its web, it quietly and patiently waits for its prey to step into the web—a reconnaissance technique with an ultra-wide range.

Yura was positioned at the edge of the spell's range, just enough to reach the outside of Takigakure Village.

Jieluo played with her hair with her fingertips, the black hair combining and transforming between her fingertips into a small, ugly doll, which hovered on her fingertips and kept spinning and dancing.

This is an ability developed by Doflamingo based on the String-String Fruit. It is a clone puppet made of strings, also known as Shadow Rider String or Shadow Puppet. The Hell Butterfly is a variant of this form. Yura calls it animalization.

Bayonetta's ability in Bayonetta is to weave and transform her hair, giving her the magic to change into animals. She can become a leopard to run fast, a raven to fly briefly, a swarm of bats to evade attacks, or a snake to move quickly in water.

Such complex shape changes require a very precise ability to manipulate hair strands. At this moment, during a break in the exploration operation, Jieluo seized the time to practice the shape changes and manipulation of hair strands.

However, the ability to transform into an animal was removed in the third installment. It also used hair as a medium and was called Demon Transformation. It allowed the summoned monster to merge with one's own hair and gain the monster's corresponding power to fight.

There are no demonic beasts in the ninja world, but there are tailed beasts.

The structure of Takigakure is very simple. It is located in a giant underground cave. The entire village is built around an underground lake in the center of the cave. The village is not large, far from the size of Konoha. Apart from some people from Takigakure who have migrated from nearby, there are several ninja clans. Together, the total number of households is barely over a thousand, with a mere few thousand people.

This is the peak of Takigakure's existence; it will decline further afterward, with only two or three big and small cats remaining.

In the center of the lake grows a huge tree.

This tree is called the Divine Tree, but it is not the Divine Tree of the Otsutsuki clan. The Hero's Water is produced by this tree and is also an important source of light for the village. It is said that the Divine Tree condenses a drop every hundred years, and only a dozen drops are accumulated over a thousand years. However, judging from how the village uses the Hero's Water, the accumulation efficiency should not be low, otherwise the accounts would not match.

The assassination mission against Hashirama Senju involved a team of twelve, with each member equipped with a drop of Hero's Water to use desperately in critical moments.

This tree must have some special origin, but there are plenty of strange treasures in the ninja world, so one divine tree won't make a difference.

What we need to find now is the shrine hidden inside the sacred tree, where the Hero's Water is offered and accumulated.

Considering the village's defensive strength, this is not an easy task. It is necessary to create some disturbances to attract attention during the capture, in order to prevent the village from resorting to desperate measures and using or damaging the Hero's Water. Otherwise, the Chunin in the village could be turned into Jonin in large numbers under the effect of the Hero's Water at any time. Jieluo does not want to face hundreds of Jonin. Fortunately, Jieluo is not without help.

For example, Kakuzu, an elite Jonin who is currently imprisoned in a cage.